454 



Garden and Forest. 



[September i8, 1889. 



under such treatment. England could not well be anything 

 else than " the grave of Orchids " until a more rational system 

 was adopted. We hope to return to this interesting subject in 

 a futiu^e article. _ , , 



London. CalyPsO. 



The Vegetable Garden.— Lettuce-seed sown now will give 

 plants in time tor setting in cold frames before winter comes, 

 and, if the winter be not too severe, many of the plants can be 

 used before spring, for they will grow if only protected from 

 frost. S|iinach,for early spring use, should also be sovvn now. 

 After the plants are of good size, and before hard weather sets 

 in, a mulch of maniu-e will be benelicial. A few plants of 

 Watercress may be set in a frame where the soil is damp, 

 and, if the frost can be excluded, tliey will make a new growtli, 

 which will prove an agreeable relish in winter. 



The Forest. 

 The Douglas Fir in Scotland. 



AMONGST the exotic timber trees which have been intro- 

 duced into Europe during the present century, the Doug- 

 las Fir has attracted more notice than any other species, owing 

 to its remarkalily quick growth during early youth. Speci- 

 mens growing in free positions are believed to have laid on a 

 mean annual increment of as much as three cubic feet, while 

 only one cubic foot, at the outside, could be expected from a 

 Larch tree; and even in a few fully stocked woods the increase 

 appeared exceedingly great. 



More than a year ago a Scotch paper drew attention to the 

 oldest pure wood of Douglas Fir, situated at Taymount, in 

 Perthshu-e, on the estate of the Earl of Manstield. The planta- 

 tion in question was spoken of in glowing terms, but only a 

 few scanty measurements were given^ so that it is difficult to 

 arrive at any definite idea on the progress of the plantation, 

 whereby it can be compared with that of indigenous timber 

 trees. 



Such general statements are often misleading, and therefore 

 a correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle, no less an au- 

 thority than Mr. W. Schlich, late Inspector-General of fhe 

 India' Forest Depot, measured, in July last, a sample plot in 

 the Taymount plantation, and also measured, by way of com- 

 parison, a sample plot in an adjoining Scotch Pine planta- 

 tion. The results of these measurements are not only of 

 interest to forest-planters in Scotland, but they well illustrate 

 certain general principles which should be borne in mind by 

 planters in every country who propose to plant forests of 

 exotic trees. 



The plantation of Tayanount is situated in 56^° northern 

 latitude, and at an elevation of about 200 feet above the level 

 on the sea. The locality may safely be set down as of the best 

 quality for the growth of trees. The rainfall is placed at 

 twenty-eight inches annually. The area of the plantation 

 amounts to eight acres, and was planted in the spring of i860, 

 in the following manner : Douglas Fir, four years old, nine by 

 nine feet ; Larch, four years old, one between every two 

 Douglas Firs, and an additional line between every two lines 

 of Fir, so that the plants stood four and one-half by four and 

 one-half feet, each acre containing 2,151 plants, of which 538 

 were Douglas Fir and 1,613 Larch. The plants of Douglas Fir 

 were two years' seedlings and two years' transplanted. The 

 plantation took a good start, and the Firs are said to have 

 taken the lead at once. The Larch were gradually thinned 

 out, until the last disappeared before the year 1880, since 

 which time the plantation was one of pure Douglas Fir. The 

 first regular thinning of the Douglas Fir occurred in 1887. 

 Before that thinning about 277 trees remained per acre, the 

 remaining 261 having gradually disappeared during the previ- 

 ous twenty-seven years. Of the 277 trees, seventy-five per 

 acre were thinned out in 1887, so that now, in 1888, the count- 

 ings showed 202 trees per acre. 



On a sample plot of average appearance all the trees were 

 measured at a height of four feet six inches from the ground, 

 and a selected tree was felled and its cubical contents accu- 

 rately determined. Without giving the tables in detail, it ap- 

 pears that the sample tree could be taken as equal to the 

 average tree in all dimensions, and estimating its growth, the 

 result showed that, leaving out of account the amount of wood 

 removed in previous thinnings, an acre of Douglas Fir had 

 given an annual increase, during the twenty-eight years since 

 the trees were planted, of 133 cubic feet of wood. 



By way of comparing these results with the production of an 

 indigenous tree, the trees on a sample plot of one-tenth of an 

 acre — in a very uniform plantation of Scotch Pine, situated at a 

 short distance from the Douglas Fir plantation — were meas- 



ured. This Scotch Pine plantation had been established in a 

 somewhat elevated spot, which was formerly of a swampy 

 descripdon. ;,The locality is of second quality only, compared 

 with the locality in which the Taymount Douglas Firs grow. 

 It was drained and planted in 1847 — that is, forty-one years — 

 with four years' old plants of Scotch Pine; it has been thinned 

 four times. 



The result of the careful survey showed that an acre of 

 Scotch Pine had given an annual production of 122 cubic feet 

 of wood, against a production of 133 cubic feet made by the 

 Douglas Fir. This difference is not great, and it is less im- 

 portant than it appears, when we consider that the ciuality of 

 the soil in the Scotch Pine wood is decidedly inferior to that of 

 the soil in the Douglas Fir wood. 



Unfortimately, Mr. Schlich had no opportunity of measuring 

 a Larch wood in the vicinity of Taymount, but it is well known 

 that, up to an age of forty-five years, at any rate. Larch pro- 

 duces a greater volume than Scotch Pine, so that he does not 

 hesitate to say that, " If grown in a well stocked or crowded 

 wood and in localities' of ecjual quality, Douglas Fir is not 

 likely to produce more solid wood during the first thirty or 

 forty years than the Larch, and probably, also, not more than 

 the Scotch Pine." 



The explanation is, that although the individual Douglas 

 Fir develops more rapidly in diameter and in height than a 

 Scotch Pine or Larch, it requires, at any rate in Scotland, much 

 more space; and, consequently, an acre of land will hold only 

 a much smaller number of trees. Moreover, the stem is more 

 tapering than those of the important European conifers. 



On the other hand, the growing stock of a Douglas Fir 

 wood consists of much larger trees (though smaller in num- 

 Ijer) than an equally old Larch or Scotch Pine wood, and this 

 is a great advantage where big timber fetches higher prices 

 than moderate-sized timber. This advantage will, however, 

 to a considerable extent, disappear with advancing age, when 

 the indigenous timber trees of Great Britain i-each the size 

 usually demanded in the market. 



The Taymount plantation gives some valuable data for 

 comparing the Douglas Fir with other trees in the early stages 

 of its development ; but, of course, it gives no information as 

 to its further production. The rate of increment of various 

 European conifers is well known, but of the Douglas Fir, 

 even in its native home, no accurate measurements are avail- 

 able. Mr. Schlich proceeds, however, to gather such additional 

 facts as he can from the following data : 



(i) Two Douglas Firs, planted on the same estate, and now 

 fifty-seven years old, are ninety feet high. 



(2) Dr. Mayr found the tree in its best estate in the moist 

 valleys of the Cascade Mountains, where the average height 

 of full-grown mature Douglas Firs, grown on soil of the best 

 quality, amounts to 213 feet, with a diameter of six and a half 

 feet, measured at six and a half feet above the ground. In 

 the same locality, on gravelly soil, the trees only reached an 

 average height of 148 feet, and a diameter of two and six-tenths 

 feet. Again, in the Rocky Mountains, in Montana, at the 

 same elevation and degree of latitude as on the west coast, 

 the Douglas Fir reaches, on best soils only, the same dimen- 

 sions as on the gravelly soil of the Cascade Range Mountains — 

 that is to say, a height of 148 feet, and a diameter of about two 

 and six-tenths feet. The part of the Cascade Range where the 

 Douglas Fir grows has an annual rainfall of about thirty 

 inches, while in Montana only twenty-four inches fall, and Dr. 

 Mayr believes that the development of the Douglas Fir is 

 proportionate to the rainfall. 



(3) A cross-section of a Douglas Fir was sent from America 

 for exhibition in Europe ; it was then made over to Kevv, 

 and by the kindness of the Director was lately presented 

 to the Cooper's Hill Forest Museum. The section shows 

 a total diameter, including the bark, of seven feet nine 

 inches, and the counting of the concentric rings indicates a 

 total age of 515 years. An examination of this tree shows that 

 it was still making good increment at an age of 515 years, 

 which is higher than that usually attained by the European 

 Larch, Scotch Pine, Spruce and Silver Fir. Secondly, it shows 

 that the enormously rapid increase of the diameter during the 

 first twenty-five years is suddenly followed by a much smaller 

 and an approximately even increment during each of the 

 following nineteen periods of twenty-five years. Thirdly, that 

 the sectional area increases, on the whole, steadily. The 

 periodic increment increases up to the age of 400 years, when 

 it commences to fall. Taken by centuries, the fourth century 

 yielded the largest increment. And finally, the rate of growth 

 indicated in the section up to the year thirty resembles that 

 of the average tree in the Taymount plantation in a striking 

 degree. 



